
JQSL^ J. ft./.*- 



OUR SACRIFICES 



SERMON 

PREACHED IN THE WEST CHURCH, 

November 3, 1861, 

BEING THE SUNDAY AFTER THE FUNERAL OF 
LIEUT. WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. 



By C. A. BARTOL 



PUBLISHED BY KEQUEST. 



BOSTON: 

nCKNOR AND FIELDS 

1861. 




01ass_ 
Book 






OUR SACRIFICES 



SERMON 

PREACHED IN THE WEST CHURCH, 

November 3, 1861, 

BEING THE SUNDAY AFTER THE FUNERAL OF 
LIEUT. WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. 



By C. A. BARTOL 



PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST. 












BOSTON: 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 

1861. 






ZdCJU 



University Press, Cambridge : 
Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. 



SERMON. 



"The Beauty of Israel is slain upon thy High Places." — 
2 Samuel i. 19. 

What a dreadful sacrifice, I have repeatedly heard 
it said, and you have repeatedly heard it said, if 
you have not repeatedly said it yourselves, as tidings 
of one after another fresh calamity from the the- 
atre of the nation's struggle smite on our ears. 
But no sacrifice stands alone, begins and ends in 
itself, or is ever to be regarded as so much blank 
loss. Let us not overlook the use of sacrifice. It 
is the law of our life, that all earthly progress in 
every good cause starts in sacrifice, lives on sacri- 
fice, and without ever-new sacrifice would faint 
and die. 

It was a great sacrifice, and David so esteemed 
it, when Saul and his son Jonathan, and two other 
sons besides, lay dead on the field under the arrows 
of the Philistine archers, who took great spoil of the 
Israelites' wealth also and their weapons of war. 
David writes a dirge on the occasion, perhaps the 
earliest from his sublime pen ; and, if so, then the 
tender muse of his sacred poems truly was born 



in sorrow and baptized in tears, as the very child 
of sacrifice. Yet, sad as the occasion was, it was 
not wholly lamentable. The death of Saul from 
the dart and the sword, and the fall on the field 
of Jonathan, whom David loved as he probably 
never loved man or woman else, with the knitting 
to him of his very soul, were not sacrifices abso- 
lute. Great use was there in the seeming waste 
of that royal and princely blood. The Philistines 
with their savage barbarous host were not helped 
on to victory by the slaughter that exacted those 
precious lives. Their stroke recoiled. The blood 
of Saul and Jonathan, that ran out of their veins, 
apparently to stop still and clotted as a pool on 
the earth, ran back somehow and was re-infused 
into the people. It made the blood of the whole 
kingdom tingle with unprecedented life and zeal. 
The damp sprinkling at the mouth of the furnace 
kindles the fire it but superficially quenches to a 
hotter glow ; and no vital current that still flowed 
was so mighty for the triumph of the Israelites 
as that which was spent and spilt like water on 
the ground. David, warrior and king as well as 
psalmist, was kinged indeed, as he was crowned 
in form, by the martyrdom he mourned ; the wild 
tribes of Amalek, the freebooters and enslavers of 
their day, were scattered before his sceptre and 
spear j — and, had there been no other fruit from 
the gore that enriched the ground of Gilboa, the 
ode itself that has come down to us with immor- 
tal inspiration, a song and a picture too, were 



worth, in its stirring influence as a grand celebra- 
tion of friendship and honor, the lives of a thou- 
sand men. Though David curses the mountains 
to have no rain or dew, food for all time has been 
gathered from their growth out of death. 

We have had ages of success in this country ; 
now has come our age of sacrifice. Manhood as 
noble and leadership as brave as Saul's, youth as 
lovely and winning as Jonathan's, have been immo- 
lated to that spirit of war which so pervades the 
race of man, like the air overhangs land and sea, 
and rages as fiercely now in our American borders 
as once on the Hebrew shores. But is it a bad 
age, undesirable to live in, because it is an age 
of sacrifice ? No, — every sacrifice for a worthy 
object is really in the soul no sacrifice at all. We 
never made or can make a bare sacrifice for truth 
and justice, our country and God. The blessed 
use overpays all our surrender. When, in any 
affair, we get more than we give up, are we not 
to be content with the dealing ? a These are our 
sacrifices" said one man to another on leaving this 
church last Monday. " And our glories too" was the 
reply. Fidelity to our convictions and living as 
we believe, at whatever cost of substance or exist- 
ence, are the only glories we are equal to ; — and 
he is but a craven who weighs comfort or for- 
tune or peace for a moment in the scale with 
honor and duty and the public weal. What is 
your or my flesh and blood in comparison with 
loyalty to our principles ? Verily, it is to be ao 



6 



counted but as so much dirt and stones in the 
streets, or a little dust in the vast sweeping of the 
floor of mortality into the grave. If it be wanted 
for any worthy service, let us say, Here it is ! 

Much has been said of the sacrifice of property, 
which might all have been spared had we inter- 
posed no obstacle to this Southern rebellion, had 
we smothered our resentment at the insult to our 
flag, and let the insurgents with their institutions 
have their own way. But in what a torrent to 
repel them we drain our funds ! Foreign writers, 
especially in England, have sent over sardonic 
speculations and queries how we, with our govern- 
ment and banks, shall solve the financial problem 
looming through the clouds of battle in our low- 
ering political sky. In the American land and 
American soul Providence will find or put value 
enough to solve it. Europe may dismiss both her 
honest over-solicitude for our welfare, and any 
premature exulting at our downfall, disbeliever 
however she may be in our democracy, forgetting 
her own revolutions and consuming wars. There 
has been some destruction of property of which 
only as a melancholy abomination we can think. 
But it has been not at our own, but the anar- 
chists' hands, that railways and bridges are wan- 
tonly destroyed and coast-lights put out. Nearly 
all at least of our sacrifices of property, the fruit 
of industry, have been in the legitimate furtherance 
of our righteous aims. Yet an enormous sacrifice 
we must own it to be. The mustering and accou- 



9 

such ransom of the land shall be deemed too high ? 
Truly, it shall not be reckoned with silver or much 
fine gold. With it, as with wisdom, not even rubies 
shall be compared. If freedom be the purchase, 
the money it comes to shall be a very little thing, 
though the purse of Croesus were emptied. 

But we have only begun to tell the story of sacri- 
fice when we speak of property alone. We might 
be better off, reduced to Spartan simplicity, by losing 
half of that. I think many of us would be. We are 
making a great sacrifice, however, of happiness too. 
The weeping of young and elder women, which you 
and I have noticed in the doorways, as the succes- 
sive regiments formed and passed along, shows but 
a few drops of the flood of grief within. The heart- 
throb as you part from, perhaps never to see again, 
that which is dear to you as the apple of your eye, 
is not light, though it makes no noise, like the puls- 
ing drum and trumpet, in the air. The anxiety of 
wives and mothers, lovers and friends, respecting 
the absent, however meekly borne as from the will 
• of God, wears on the springs of life. The report of 
a fatal result to some object of affection rends the 
heart-strings in which his form was enwoven. When 
tidings of wounds or death have reached one dwell- 
ing, the doubt pervading the entire community 
whither now the angel of death will fly, and on 
what threshold next the waiting inmates may see 
the crimson stain, weighs as a burden which only the 
grace of Heaven can help to bear. The whole Chris- 
tian feeling of the people too is troubled and torn 



10 



at the horrid spectacle of war between fellow-men, 
fellow-citizens, nay, offspring sometimes of the same 
ancestry, begotten and born of one parentage, per- 
haps rocked in the cradle together and consecrated 
from the womb to brotherly love, now arrayed on 
opposite sides, and seeking to pierce each other's 
breasts. 

But the sacrifice even of happiness in all this 
alfectional and moral pain we must make cheerfully. 
Do you say it is an excessive sacrifice ? Whether 
it is excessive depends on what it is made for ; and 
I plead, there is for it reason enough, and a fully 
atoning object. It is no more than belongs to our 
actual cause. Jesus Christ did not hesitate to pro- 
mulgate his religion, though he foresaw it would 
divide families and make a man's foes to be those of 
his own household, and put a sword into numberless 
hands ; for, spite of all such mischief and misery, he 
knew how preponderant to the world would be the 
benefits of his Gospel. We must not draw back 
from our dread crisis and ordeal of fire ; for it is 
the only mode that appears of maintaining our 
fathers' enterprise of a free and Christian com- 
munity on these Western shores. What other 
practicable method there is will you tell me ? I 
see none. As the bitter sacrifices multiply and 
grow severe, some are tempted to ask if we have 
not in all this business made some horrid mistake. 
They shrink from further waging the terrible strife, 
and are almost ready for any mean compromise. 
But the sufferers, from whom the sacrifices have 



11 



been or may be taken, do not shrink. They have 
counted the cost. They, like Jesus, have had their 
agony beforehand. It has been in the garden more 
than on the cross. Therefore they, like him, endure 
the cross so meekly, with a serene beauty of 
behavior by which some, who think only of their 
affliction, are amazed. They conclude their offering 
to country, to liberty and God, when they send 
their sons and brothers to the war. 

Besides, in this matter of sacrifice, let us re- 
member, sacrifice in some shape we cannot avoid. 
It is for us, as for the Hebrews, standing among 
their flocks, to determine what particular sacrifice 
we will choose. Sacrifice, greater or less, we must 
make. We have but an alternative. Should we 
withhold our present sacrifice, what must be the 
substitute? Our whole political system broken 
up ! The banner of the United States, — God bless 
it ! — not only fired at on one fort or lowered from 
a single staff, but everywhere displaced, banished, 
and destroyed ! The seat of government taken, 
and the federal authorities, by the vote of the 
whole people fairly chosen, disgraced and dis- 
persed ! An end to that dream of liberty for 
which our sires crossed the sea, and were willinc 
to cross the other narrower but more fearful sea 
of death, as so many of them did. A worse des- 
potism than they fled from, a slavery they would 
have shuddered to foresee, and as they look clown 
from heaven must deplore, spreading without check 
through our territories, prescribing as a sovereign 



12 



our legislative policy, winning or forcing the mag- 
nificent stretch of our soil to itself; or, if the 
stubborn old Puritan stock should still revolt and 
hold out against its insolent sway, leaving this 
little corner of New England out in the cold here 
to shift for itself and be subject to all the igno- 
minious dictations of a neighboring despotic realm. 
Will you make such a sacrifice, instead of the 
sacrifice you have already brought ? One or the 
other you must elect. Which, brethren and sis- 
ters, shall it be ? How should we like sacrifice 
coming in this style, of the kicks and buffets of 
one domineering empire or of a row of arrogant 
rival States ? Would not all this other sacrifice 
be the greatest and worst ? For one, I must say 
it is no point of wavering with me. By no re- 
verses is my judgment changed. The will of God, 
which is equity, is not changed. Your resolve, 
which is patriotism, is not changed. No, — rather 
than fail to vindicate the proper institutions of the 
land, let us rise, and let us fall, to the last man ! 
Let us not be nice in our preference as to the 
blow that shall smite us or the ditch into which we 
shall be thrown. Let us pick out a big burial-place 
for what may remain of us or ours ; or, should we 
survive our country and American liberty, let us 
emigrate to some other clime, till it please God to 
take us to the franchise of heaven. 

But we have not come to despair of the repub- 
lic. We do not expect its foes to conquer. It is 
not unlikely their strength, kept up with valor so 



13 



fierce and grim in a bad enterprise, when it yields, 
may suddenly give way, with awful and utter col- 
lapse. But only by the virtue of our unfaltering 
resolve pressing hard upon it. There is nothing 
for us, then, but to stick to that side of sacrifice 
we have espoused already, and turn it from the 
horn of a dilemma into a horn like David's, ex- 
alted with honor. We must gain the victory. To 
gain it in battle, we must gain it in our hearts ; we 
must gain it in our households, we must gain it at 
home. But one end of our army in fact is in the 
field. The other end is here. It is composed, not 
of men, but women. Tender maidens and venera- 
ble matrons are in it, instead of soldierly veterans 
and valiant youth. The unsheathed needle is all 
their armory, instead of cannon, musket, and sword. 
But it serves as well ; nay, it is, in their hands, 
essentially strong to support cannon and musket 
and sword. If our case is won, to them as much 
as to the ranks in uniform will the credit be due ; 
for, without woman's siding with him, in nothing 
can man succeed. Well is it recorded that woman 
was formed of man and brought to him. " The 
rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, 
made he a woman." Were her encouragement 
withdrawn, I should be unnerved, if I could be by 
anything less than the abandonment of the Most 
High. It is glorious to see woman's rights by 
woman herself all absorbed now in woman's duty. 
Let man and woman together yield the sacrifice 
of this sad but necessary war. We thought in- 



14 



deed war for us was over. We heard it grum- 
bling on in the distant corners of the earth ; but 
we fancied the monster, formerly ravaging here 
too, now a phantom for us, gone from our para- 
dise too far to come back, as in a quiet night we 
see Mars and the Great Bear so cool and noise- 
less in the sky. Yet it revisits us in all its wrath. 
Let us deal with and carry it on in such a spirit 
and design as shall convert it from an enemy to 
a friend. Let us make it, not the ruiner, but re- 
generator of our land. Then all the sacrifices it 
exacts will be sanctified. God willing and his chil- 
dren faithful, they shall be sanctified. By the 
same blast which blows away the first froth of 
self-confidence from the surface, the deeper pur- 
pose is stirred. Our gloomy fear, too, as well as 
vanity, the wind shall scatter. As I looked at twi- 
light lately from my window, I saw the evening 
star in splendor such as I never saw equalled be- 
fore. Clouds had been on it ; mists had obscured 
its face. But they had passed with fugitive haste, 
nor robbed it of a single beam. Why with such 
especial brightness did it shine to the eye ? It 
shone so brightly because it had been dimmed ! 
So shall it be with this other planet, of light and 
freedom, our country in the West. Clouds may 
blot its lustre. They are over us now. But they 
will break, as, at this moment of my speaking, 
yonder storm breaks and lets into these windows 
a clearer ray. We may sacrifice our sunny happi- 
ness for a while. But not for outward happiness 



15 



were we made, but for inward blessedness, through 
self-denial at first, completed in ecstasy at last. If 
we can bless each other and society by coining 
our comfort and heart's blood into a self-sacrificing 
service, let us not hold back. 

Familiar events prove that to property and hap- 
piness we must personally, like the Jews in old 
Canaan, for ourselves or those dearest to us, add 
the sacrifice of life. To one, among many such 
noble and widely commemorated sacrifices, I wish, 
in closing, to refer, not to gratify myself or any 
others peculiarly concerned, but, through the pub- 
lic attention, already fixed on it by circumstances 
of thrilling interest, for the benefit, as great as can 
be derived from any sermon, of delineating what I 
must consider a model of human worth. William 
Lowell Putnam, born July 9th, 1840, Lieutenant in 
a Massachusetts company, fell bravely fighting for 
his country, in the act probably of at once leading 
on his men and making a step to the relief of a 
wounded officer, in the battle of Ball's Bluff, Octo- 
ber 21st, 1861, and he died, at the age of 21, the 
next day. The State that gave him birth, and to 
which he gave back honor, joined with his kindred 
and friends in celebrating his obsequies in this 
church, last Monday, October the 28th. The coffin 
lay on the same spot occupied, nine months ago, by 
that of Dr. Charles Lowell, his maternal grandfather. 
The corse of the soldier and hero, surmounted with 
the sword unwielded and motionless in its scabbard, 
was not unworthy to succeed here that of the 



16 



preacher and saint ; for spiritual weapons were no 
cleaner in the hands of the first than carnal ones in 
those of the last. Striking was the contrast made 
by the youth's silken locks and smooth, fair cheeks, 
cold in death, with the white hair on the furrowed 
brow that had also reposed at the shrine so long 
vocal with well-remembered tones of an eloquent 
and holy mouth. But there was more union 
than separation. The benignant resolution of the 
elder's expression was repeated in the sweet firm- 
ness of the young man's lips. They seemed as 
near together in spirit as circumstantially wide 
apart. The two venerable names of Lowell and 
of Putnam — the eminent jurist, as beloved as he 
was distinguished * — were well united in that of 
the youth ; for he justified every supposable law 
of hereditary descent by continuing in his temper 
and very look, with the minister's loving earnest- 
ness, the singular cordiality, the wondrous and spot- 
less loving-kindness, which in his paternal grand- 
father's manner was ever like a warm beam of the 
sun. The delicacy due to the living allows me only 
to point to a picture such as is seldom exhibited, in 

* Samuel Putnam was born 1768, and died 1853. At the bar he was 
particularly distinguished for his knowledge of Commercial Law, a chiv- 
alric sense of honor and duty, and uniform amenity of manners. 

On the Bench of the Supreme Court, where he served for twenty- 
eight years, the exhibition of these powers of mind and elements of 
character gained for him universal affection and respect ; and his opin- 
ions in that branch of the law are esteemed among the most valuable 
contributions to jurisprudence to be found in the Reports of the State of 
Massachusetts. 



17 



his only surviving grandparent, of an intelligently 
contented, industriously cheerful, Christian old age, — 
still growing riper and fresher towards almost ninety 
years. A worthy grandchild William was. He bore 
out in action, in danger and death, every rising sig- 
nal and promise of his brief but beautiful life. In 
the conflict, he cared more for others' peril than for 
his own. He sank, from all his forward motion, 
under one mortal wound. But, while he suffered, 
he smiled. He deprecated any assistance to him- 
self as vain ; he urged all to the work before them, 
and even forbade his soldiers to succor him. " Do 
not move me," he said to his friend ; " it is your 
duty to leave me ; help others ; I am going to die, 
and would rather die on the field." With noble, 
yet well-deserved support, however, he was borne 
nearly a mile to the boat at the fatal river's brink 
by Henry Howard Sturgis of this city, who left him 
only to return to fight in his own place, and after- 
wards watched him like a mother in the hospital, 
hoping for his restoration. As he lay prostrate, 
knowing he could not recover, he beckoned to his 
friend to come to him, that he might praise the 
courage of his men in the encounter, rather than to 
say anything of himself. With such patient com- 
posure he endured his anguish and weakness, prob- 
ably no mortal but himself could suspect how far 
he was gone. He sent home the simple message of 
love. Brightly, concealing his pangs, he wore away 
the weary hours. Cheerfully, on the Tuesday morn- 
ing which was his last on earth, he spoke to his 



18 



faithful servant, George. He closed his eyes at 
length, and did not open them again, presenting, 
and perhaps knowing, no distinction between sleep 
and death. He "is not dead, but sleepeth," might 
it not have been said again? But, like the child 
raised by our Lord, he slept but a little. The 
greatness of his waking who shall tell ? 

I looked often and earnestly on that young man's 
face, in the house and by the wayside ; and now 
that I can see it in the flesh no longer, it still hangs 
and shines conspicuous in the gallery of chosen 
portraits in my mind. I would fain put into some 
photograph of words what it expressed, and what 
the likeness fortunately taken of him largely pre- 
serves, respecting others' testimony while I render 
my tribute, and blending their views with my own ; 
for I find in all estimates of him a notable uniform- 
ity. The first impression which any one beholding 
him would have received, was of a certain magna- 
nimity. The countenance was open, and, as from 
an ample doorway, the generous disposition to meet 
you came out. There was a remarkable mixture of 
sweetness and independence in all his aspect and 
bearing. From his very gait and salutation you 
would perceive that his mind was made up, and 
he meant something by his glance or utterance ; 
as one who knew him said, there was character in 
whatever he did. I am not sure a discerner of 
spirits might not have gathered, before he elected 
his part, from his effective carriage and fine physical 
development, signs of a military taste. Yet, if the 



19 



martial inclination were in him, it was combined 
with a strong aversion to take life or inflict distress. 
He proved once more, as it has been proved ten 
thousand times, that the brave is also the tender 
heart. But above all mortal considerations of pleas- 
ure or pain was his regard for justice and truth. 
He had a rare native rectitude. He never deviated 
from sincerity. If anything could grieve him, or, 
even in his childhood, move him for a moment from 
the admirable felicity of his temper, it would be 
any calling in question of his word. But the sensi- 
bility in him that felt all forgave all too ; and with- 
out the sensibility that measures our forgiveness, 
our forgiveness is nothing worth. Beyond any 
passion, he evinced the reason in which his passion 
was held. Coolness in him covered enthusiasm ; 
the gravity of deep though early experience re- 
pressed the sparkles of natural humor ; a heart 
wistful of affection attended self-reliance ; the mod- 
est and almost diffident was the courageous soul ; 
by ready concession to another's correctness in any 
debate, he curbed a mounting will; and he suited 
the most explicit clearness of opinion to the perfect 
gentleman's ways. With his seriousness went along 
a keen sense of the ludicrous, by which almost ev- 
ery highly moral nature is quick to observe what 
is outwardly awry, as well as what is intrinsically 
wrong ; but he was more apt, when he laughed, to 
laugh at himself than at other folks. He could con- 
tend also, but never from love of contention. He 
would fight only for a great object ; he went to the 



20 



war in his country's emergency, at the outset pro- 
posing to go as a private ; and he intended to 
return to the study and practice of the law if he 
survived. If he survived : but no sanguine thought 
of surviving did he entertain. He had no reserves ; 
he was a devotee in arms. He offered himself as 
though less to slay than be slain were his end. No 
more of hero than martyr was in his mood, as in 
his doom. He threw his life in without scruple, 
with the ancient judging it sweet and decorous to 
die for one's country ; and the parental presenti- 
ment, that die he would, was matched in the entire 
readiness for such an event with which the always 
fearless son, under no shadow of his own apprehen- 
sion, marched on to the fatal fray. In every ex- 
tremity he was self-possessed. If by one word I 
must mark the quality most prominent in his de- 
portment, I should call it balance. Did this unquali- 
fied courage, in one extraordinarily conscious of 
existence, and with constitutional tenacity rooted 
in the present life, spring from the faith he so 
vividly had in immortality ? and did that faith in 
turn spring from a profoundly religious trust in 
God ? I believe it ! I believe even the exuberant, 
vivacious, frolicsome boy had in him the germ, 
afterwards to open, of all this faith and trust. Im- 
pulsive, he did not act from impulse, but from that 
contemplation on the truth of the universe which 
told him on what impulse to proceed, and marked 
his way over the earth into the heavens. 

Precious intellectual gifts, mostly philosophic, 



21 

though with no want of imagination, were in our 
brother, so that his friend abroad, Guepin, expected 
in him great scientific attainments, — while he 
spoke French, German, and Italian, in the style of 
the common people, whom he loved, as well as the 
dialect of the refined circles. He was fond of read- 
ing, but only of the best works in composition of 
any kind; and he left an exciting romance half 
finished, at the hint of something not wholesome 
or altogether lofty in the author's tone. His mind 
and heart were in unison, and on his young com- 
panions, as well as elders, he made the same stamp 
of a superiority permitting only one idea of him. 
It were hard to tell whether the reflective or ex- 
ecutive faculties prevailed, so exact in his very 
nature was their poise. But the moral in him 
ever presided over the intellectual. Not for dis- 
tinction, but duty, he lived, as he died. I know how 
the dead are eulogized, and what a eulogy I give ; 
but out of the sincere thoughts of my heart I give 
it, — that those who knew him best, while they 
admired his talents, were never able to discover 
his faults. 

Such is one of our sacrifices of life. A dawn 
predicting individual excellence through a long 
career, as plainly as the yet beardless Raphael's 
picture of the holy marriage was said to be pro- 
phetic of all his subsequent fame, has suddenly 
withdrawn its lustre from the earth. Is the sac- 
rifice too great ? I ask his kindred, is it too great ? 
Would you have your boy back ? Under the old 



22 



dispensation, when a sacrifice God would surely 
accept was to be made, a firstling of the flock, 
a lamb without spot or blemish, was singled out 
for the altar. A firstling of the flock, a lamb with- 
out spot or blemish, has been selected now. God 
himself, for this very purpose, as I think, of a meas- 
ureless blessing to enliven the common heart, has 
chosen a victim from our beloved fold. No, we 
would not have him back. We would have him 
where he is ! In the victim may we see the victory 
too. In the follower, as in the master, may the 
twofold lesson of triumph with sacrifice be seen. 
May the Divine wisdom, that loses life more cer- 
tainly to save it, and gives up to gain all, shown 
so well in a new example, have imitation every- 
where and continuance without end. Be humbly 
proud, be sacredly envious of the dead in the pat- 
tern displayed ; for imitation and continuance it 
has ! The enlistment, at the public need, of edu- 
cated young men is not damped, but inspirited, 
from a companion's or kinsman's expiring breath. 
That breath passeth far through the whole air, into 
their nostrils ! " I must go," said one of them to 
his father, — "I feel like a poltroon here at home." 
" Go with my blessing," was the father's reply. As 
the father himself told me this yesterday, he could 
talk no farther, for tears, but turned away. May 
the spectacle, so frequent among us, the most beau- 
tiful spectacle now beneath the sun, of boyhood 
tearing itself from mothers' embraces and fathers' 
arms, and happy homes, and loving dissuasives, to 



23 



consecrate itself to country's good, prefigure an- 
other spectacle, of a country purged of its errors 
and renewing its youth. May Heaven bless to 
our redemption every vicarious sacrifice, of the 
wounded and still exposed, as well as the dead ; 
— and so may all loss and self-surrender be sanc- 
tified in a perpetual resurrection, from the Most 
High, on earth and in heaven, of "the beauty of 
Israel," slain upon our high places, till the blood 
of the martyrs, which is the seed of the Church, 
shall be also the life of the state. Standing, for 
us and ours, " as on life's utmost verge," at the 
edge of whatever may come to mortals, so to the 
Eternal we pray ; — and may the Eternal to what 
even on earth is immortal in us too, answer our 
prayer ! Then we shall not have sacrificed on his 
altar in vain. All our sacrifices will redound alike 
to his glory, our country's welfare, and our own 
final gladness and peace. It is no sacrifice of 
truth, justice, freedom, or any human right, that we 
make. Only lower and cheaper things we sacrifice 
to these principles which are the attributes of God. 
Fixed be our faith that something, not of the dust 
and not laid low on the field, something which the 
funeral procession cannot marshal, nor the mighty 
state precede, nor the whole earth, whose mouth 
opens for the dead, swallow up, has escaped alive 
above the bonds we yet wear, into the region where 
is liberty, unity, peace, and light, with no need of 
the sun, for the Lord God doth lighten it, and the 
Lamb is the light thereof. 



LB D '05 



